This is Not a Safe House, Part III
by Sara Dobie Bauer
Summary: Highly requested continuation of the "This is Not a Safe House" series ... Irene Adler visits Sherlock in the hospital as he recovers from a gunshot wound. She leaves a single red rose and makes an impossible request: "Stop being a detective and run away with me."
1. Chapter 1

Sherlock Holmes in a hospital bed looked unreal, so in the darkness of night, she reached out her fingers and touched the skin around his white bandage. He was real. And warm. He was alive, breathing, asleep, and probably high on morphine. Comforted by the quiet sound of beeping machines that monitored his heart rate, Irene Adler was finally able to set the small vase and red rose on the table at the foot of his bed.

Should she wake him? If she did, she knew she would have to answer for herself—her absence. Perhaps if she woke him, he would think it but a dream and forget her by morning. But no, the rose would give her away. He would know it was from her, so maybe she should leave, just turn around and go, before those piercing blue eyes could stab her in the heart.

One more touch; she'd never been good at denying herself anything. She hoped the drugs were strong in his system as she leaned over and kissed his forehead.

His voice rumbled beneath her: "I was wondering if you were going to cut and run."

She lingered with her mouth against his skin and then pulled back slowly. "So was I." Irene looked down at the man she loved and hadn't seen in over two years. He had aged some, filled out. Not so skinny anymore, and his features, more rugged. She knew she had changed, too.

"You didn't answer me." He sounded furious.

She stepped to the bottom of his hospital bed and smiled. "Did you ask a question?"

"When I came back to London, I sent for you. You didn't answer."

"No."

He tried to sit up, but his face melted into pained wrinkles.

She ran to him, her weakness showing. She put her hands on his chest and pushed him back against the bed. "Don't," she said.

She watched him take a few deep breaths, his eyes closed.

"You look different," she whispered.

"I look different? You were blond last I saw you."

She nodded, remembering their time in California. He'd talked as if they had a future then. He'd talked about her coming to hide at Baker Street when he came back to life in London—talked as if they might end up happy. Together.

He looked up at her, and she withered under his gaze. "Why didn't you come back?"

"Who shot you?"

He chuckled, bit at his bottom lip. "Planning a vendetta?"

"Mr. Holmes—"

"Don't call me that."

Irene tried to hide behind her long hair, loose around her shoulders. Quietly, she asked again, "Who shot you?"

"No one." He continued to stare at her.

"You know who shot you."

He was silent.

"Sherlock—"

"Tell me why you didn't come back."

"For goodness sake." She spun away from him and looked toward the hollow, yellow light of the hospital hall. "I never should have come here."

"But you couldn't help it. Still playing a game, Ms. Adler?"

"What game?" She spun on him, and the back of her hands felt hot.

He wore an infuriating smirk. "See how badly you can hurt the great Sherlock Holmes. And I'm in a hospital bed. I imagine a new low for you."

She knew he was being petulant on purpose. He was being mean to make her react and to defend himself, surely, but the words still hurt. The way he'd left her last time, in San Fran—he'd been so tender, so loving, and so … vulnerable. She'd carried that softened image of him for two years, and she knew, he now did all he could to shatter the memory.

"I don't want to hurt you, Sherlock."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I …" She couldn't face him. She still looked toward the hall, arms crossed on her chest. "I just needed to see you."

"Why?"

"Because I love you, and someone shot you."

"From what I understand of love … if you love me, you would have come back to me when I called."

She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder, knowing the full sight of him would be too much. All the things she'd missed—his hair, his face, his body, his mind—awaited her response. "So I could wait to be a widow?"

"I'm not dead."

"Yet." She approached his hospital bed, hugging herself. "How many times, Sherlock? How many times before you stop?"

A wrinkle appeared above his nose. "I don't understand."

"Almost dying is a yearly thing for you now."

"As if you can talk."

"Look at me." She pulled at the soft lapels of her navy blue suit. "Do I look the same to you? I'm done with the secrets, done with dangerous men. That's why I didn't come back. I'm not willing to watch you die."

"Please." He was disgusted. He looked away from her, so she held onto his chin and made him stare her straight in the face.

"Stop all this. Just stop. If you stop, I'll come back to you. We could disappear, never be seen again. We could grow old."

His brow furrowed. "You never wanted that."

"Not until I met you." She kissed him, and he instantly reacted to her mouth. She felt his hand on the back of her head, pushing her harder against him, and she captured his hair between her fingers. The feelings were all there—as she remembered, as she dreaded: the lust, the yearning, and the horrible, painful love. She felt herself drowning, and she pulled away.

He watched her take steps back, his lips parted and damp. "I can't. I can't stop yet. There's something I have to do."

She nodded. "The person who shot you."

"Yes."

"Then what?"

He looked away from her, and half his face was lost in the darkness. "I need time."

She felt so cold away from him, in the same room but not touching him—God, after so long. How many nights had she dreamt of him? How many nights spent screaming his name? Now, so close, she felt eons apart.

"Give me a month," he whispered.

"It'll be almost Christmas."

"Find me then."

Externally, she did not appear to be running, but inside, she sprinted away from him and the single rose on the hospital table. She looked back, once, haloed in the glowing hospital light, but his eyes were closed.


	2. Chapter 2

She snuck in through his bedroom window at midnight and found everything as it had once been: unmade bed, periodic table on the wall, and a discarded robe on the floor. She found him in the living room, sitting in his chair beside a crackling fire. Irene sat across from him in John's seat.

Sherlock appeared to have been expecting her. She'd been watching him for days, and, still recovering from his injury, he usually wore t-shirts and loose pants. That night, he wore a suit—all black, like the first time they met. His eyes didn't lighten at her arrival. She wondered if he saw her at all.

She ran her open palm over the arm of John's chair. "Just like old times."

He didn't speak, just stared, unseeing.

"And how is John Watson?"

The mention of his friend's name made him blink. "Not well," he said.

She thought he'd just gotten married, was expecting a child. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Sherlock's eyes found her, dark in the dimness. She felt his eyes wander over her skin like fingers. "You look more beautiful in firelight."

She had trouble swallowing, because Sherlock—_her_ Sherlock—never talked like that. "What's wrong?"

He covered his mouth with steepled fingers and shook his head.

Irene decided to say fuck all to decorum. Fuck all to appearances. She stood up and curled herself onto Sherlock's lap. Due to their difference in height, she fit perfectly, her head beneath his chin, her fingers tucked beneath his suit jacket. She took a deep breath and recognized the way he always smelled: clean and crisp with a hint of expensive cologne. Sometimes, she swore she caught his scent in her varying apartments. Sometimes, she swore he was near—but not in the literal sense of right now.

She felt his arm go around her. His hand came to rest on the outside of her thigh, and he leaned the side of his chin against the top of her head. She felt his body relax.

"How do you feel?" She spoke softly, as if someone might hear.

"I don't know."

"How's the hole in your chest?"

"Healed."

She felt his fingers in her hair, and she closed her eyes. "Say it."

He paused, and then: "I can't stop."

"I know. So I can't be with you. I won't."

"I know."

She ran her fingertips over the fabric of his shirt. "We were never meant to have a happy ending, Sherlock."

"I don't believe in them."

"Nor do I." She rested her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. "Make love to me."

His hand moved to her lower back, and he leaned forward so she could feel his breath against her cheek. "Is that a good idea?"

"Sex is always a good idea." She sat up quickly and straddled his legs. She reached for his face, but he held her wrist in his hand.

"Irene."

She looked down at him, and she wasn't the only one who looked more beautiful in firelight. "No, it's a horrible idea. I'll be reminded of how much I love you and how much I'll miss you when I leave in the morning. But if you're this close and I don't touch your skin one last time, I'll go mad."

Without asking permission, she began to unbutton his black shirt. He rested his hands on the arms of the chair and watched her. She paused halfway down, because she found what she sought: a closed, circular, red wound that would soon become a scar. She ran her fingers over the remnant of his pain.

"Your skin used to be perfect."

"No." He pushed his shirt and suit jacket off his right shoulder to reveal a much older but similarly rounded wound.

Irene laughed and ran her thumb over his shoulder. "Karachi. The first time you saved my life. Not perfect after all."

"Perfection is boring."

She smiled and looked to her hands, folded against his abdomen. "Make love to me like you mean it."

He lifted her chin with his knuckle. "I've always meant it with you. And it was never about sex."

"But it is with normal people," she said. "So let's play the game."

He moved his fingers away from her face. "I can't."

"So I leave? No final night together."

"I would tie you to my bed and never let you leave."

She closed her eyes and smiled. "That's my job."

"Was. Your job."

"You're right, I don't do that anymore, but I'd make an exception for you—if only to get you on your back." She spread her knees wider and pressed her pelvis against him. She was rewarded with an unexpected hardness between his legs. "Please." She touched his nose with hers. "My love. My only love."

"I think I have to do something terrible," he said.

"We all do terrible things."

He put his hands on her hips and rubbed inside her thighs with his thumbs. "I think I might have to kill a man."

"You've killed men before." She remembered how he'd been in Karachi when he'd killed a number of terrorists to save her life.

"This time I'll be caught."

She pulled her face away from his and glowered. "Then, don't do it."

"I may have to."

She used her hand against his chest as a support and pushed off his lap. She took steps away from him and glared. "You will not allow yourself to get caught."

"I don't have a choice, Irene."

She turned her back on him with her hand to her mouth, but she heard him move in the chair behind her. He stood.

"I see," he said, his resonant voice just behind her. "Prison doesn't fit your plan—your plan of dropping in to see me whenever it pleases you until I'm dead. Is that it? You plan to haunt me. Make sure there is never another woman."

She spun on him. "There will never be another woman for you! You know that."

"Do I? Because you're the first, you'll be the last?" He crushed her against the wall and held her thin wrists in his hands. He parted her legs with his knee and pressed against her. Her throat made a moaning sound without her consent. He was different, God, her Sherlock was different. The first two times they'd been together, he'd needed coercing. Now, he held her captive, and although trapped, she ground her sex against his knee.

"Are you expecting me to beg?" she asked quietly.

"You fucking ruin me," he said. "You show up in my head unbidden. You're a constant distraction. Even after you leave me, you still … It'll be worse when you leave. At least if you were here, at Baker Street, I could see you and touch you. If you leave, you will haunt me for the rest of my days."

"Don't you think I feel the same way about you?"

"If that was true, you would stay."

"I won't stay to watch you go to prison." She closed her eyes. "Now, please just fuck me and stop talking."

He let go of her wrists and walked away from her. He faced the window overlooking Baker Street with his hands on his hips, his forehead tilted toward the floor. Irene realized he was back—the man who needed coercing. He needed to be seduced, and if nothing else, she was good at seduction.

His shirt was already unbuttoned, so it was easy to slide his suit jacket and shirt off his shoulders. She tossed both, a pile of black, on John's empty chair. She ran her fingers over the much larger, more defined muscles of his back.

"What happened to you?"

He glanced at her.

"You're so much bigger."

He ducked his head and did not respond. In her mind, she pictured him, those two years spent alone, dismantling Moriarty's crew. Maybe he thought adding weight would give him more credence. He certainly looked more imposing with his height and added girth. She pressed her fingers into his skin and enjoyed the way his breathing changed, quieted, with her touch.

"Turn around," she said.

"I can't do this."

"Yes, you can." She was surprised by the indignation in her voice. "You refuse to live a normal life loving me. You will give me this, Sherlock Holmes." She pulled on his right shoulder, in homage to Karachi, and spun him to face her. She pushed him against the nearest wall, as hard as she could. She was angry, wrathful. The room had taken on a red glow, not from the fireplace. "Touch me, you bastard, before I leave you."

For a man who did not understand human emotion, she could tell he saw there was something wrong with her. She hated the way he looked at her, as if she was an injured dog, crushed by a passing car. It was that look—that unexpected emotion of pity—that made her turn away from him and run for the door of 221B.

But she forgot how fast Sherlock could move. As her hand reached the doorknob, he was already on her, his arms wrapped around her upper chest and stomach. He pulled her away from the door, and she kicked and scratched at his arms.

"Let me go," she screamed. "I hate you."

He only crushed her body harder against his own. "If I can fix this one last thing for John, I will stop."

She stopped clawing at him.

"Just one last thing, Irene, and I will stop and love you for the rest of my life."

She bent her upper body away from him and sobbed. She no longer felt humiliated, crying in front of him, because this was not the man she'd met three years ago. Sherlock Holmes was different, more human, and she realized, weaker for it—much more vulnerable, which was perhaps why she had the feeling that whatever he needed to "fix" for John would not go as planned.

Her Sherlock was no longer perfect, and the ache in her chest told him she loved him all the more.

"Take me to bed," she whispered through her tears, and he lifted her small feet off the ground and carried her to his room. He laid her gently on the bed. "The first time I saw you sleeping was here." She paused. "You didn't look very intimidating then."

He knelt by the bed and unbuckled her high-heeled shoes. "At least I don't snore."

"No. You don't."

She watched him remove her shoes. His long fingers reached under her skirt and rolled down her stockings, one by one. Each item he took off, he placed in a small pile at the base of his bed.

"Is it still just me, Sherlock?"

"Hmm?" He'd rolled her over and slowly unzipped her skirt.

"Have there been other women?"

He shimmied her skirt off her slim hips. "Irene, it will always be just you."

On her side, she rested her head against a pillow that smelled distinctly Sherlock and allowed him to remove her skirt and her underwear. She felt his mouth on the side of her ass and his fingers on her thighs before he rolled her over and began to unbutton her white, lace shirt.

"I love you," she muttered, her body already reacting to his touch.

He pressed a kiss between her breasts, and her mind left. Her emotions took pause, and her body took over. His ministrations left her completely nude, but he still wore his dress shoes, pants, and whatever waited underneath, so she used her adept fingers to reach for his belt. There was nothing rushed in her movements. She took as much time as she could, despite the slight shaking of her fingers, to disrobe him, because this was it—his last time.

When she got him completely nude, everything was as she remembered, although he carried added weight and an added scar. At first, they lay together, side-by-side, mouths connected, fingers touching intimate spaces. Neither made the first move, because a beginning was only a beginning to an end.

In the past, in Sherlock's own bed, she would have tied him up. She would have had costumes planned. She would have had her riding crop, but that was all over. She no longer wanted to dominate her consulting detective. She wanted to be consumed by him, until there was nothing left—no pain, no regret, no fear.

She reached between his legs and ran her hand over him. She waited for the sound he made—the deep purr—and got it almost immediately. He touched her, softly, running one finger over her engorged flesh, then two. Irene felt almost juvenile, playing at shadow games, but then, she remembered: after tonight, she would never feel his touch again. Every caress was more valuable than gold.

Irene found his mouth, tasted his breath. He always tasted sweet to her. She opened her mouth for his tongue and suspected he had been at least kissing someone else. He'd never kissed her quite like_ that_ before. She smiled against his lips and put her hand on the back of his neck to pull him closer.

He entered her with them both on their sides. Neither one was one top; they were equals, and with him inside her, she wrapped her leg around his and pressed against him. She was able to take in every inch of his face and feel the expanse of his skin against her own. She memorized every sight, every sound. For a fleeting moment, Irene feared she would never be able to enjoy sex again, not after him, but then, he pumped against her, and all rational thought was gone.

With his increased pressure, she opened her mouth and sucked hard on his shoulder. She clawed at his back and arched her pelvis against him. She said his name, whispered, and he reciprocated in kind. She came in a torrent of screams and body twitches, but she focused her mind enough to watch him orgasm.

The same wrinkles he showed when he smiled came out during sex. His forehead furrowed, and his eyes squeezed shut. His lips parted just so, wide enough for her to tongue, but she didn't. She watched, memorized, because Irene knew sex would never again be as good as this.


	3. Chapter 3

She lay crushed against him, her head on his chest. Her long fingernails played with the smattering of black hair between his pecs. He was asleep, perhaps; regardless, she repeated the same two phrases, over and over: "I hate you. I love you."

He spoke, and she wasn't surprised. "Everything I've ever done for you, I've done to keep you safe."

"And now?"

"It is not safe to love me."

She clung to him tighter, her skin a sticky mess of his sweat and other things. "No one is safe."

"You could be, without me. And John will be soon."

"You would do anything for him."

"I would do anything for you, too. And I will, once this is fixed."

She ran her fingertips over his nipple, which made him twitch beneath her touch. "What are you going to do, Sherlock?"

He paused, silent, and ran his fingers down her spine. "If all goes well, you'll never hear of it. And I'll come to you, and we'll go away."

She pretended. "Where will we go?"

"We'll be librarians."

She chuckled and rose up on one elbow to look at him. "Will we?"

"Endless books. Quiet. You in my bed every night."

She pushed hair off his forehead. "You'll get bored."

"I can't wait to be bored."

"But only after this … thing you have to do."

Her words seemed to send him far away to a place of darkness and fear. His eyes changed; his lips grew tight. Even lying in bed, his shoulders seemed to creep up his neck. She knew then he was never coming back to her. She suffocated her horror with a deep kiss.

"After," she said, to save him from speaking.

"Yes. After," he mumbled.

"I want you to know, I'm sorry if I hurt you, in anything I've done."

"A final farewell to a dead man?"

She ran her nose down his forehead and next to his own. "I can finally say it. I've lied about it before. But I'll be honest now."

He waited, silent.

"I am so sorry I ever met you."


	4. Chapter 4

There were no tearful goodbyes when she left his apartment. There wasn't even a kiss; she couldn't bear it. She left him in his robe, at the top of the stairs to 221B, and she did not look back.

It wasn't long before she heard about what had happened Christmas Day. The official story made it nowhere hear British news stations, but she had people—she still knew what they liked—who told her things. They told her Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective, had finally become a murderer. He had killed a newspaper tycoon in front of several witnesses, not the least of which was Dr. John Watson. When she heard that, when Irene heard about John, she knew Sherlock had killed someone for him—just as he'd killed someone for her. He did that for the people he loved.

She watched the news and waited, but there was no criminal trial. Sherlock's name wasn't even mentioned, which made her realize prison was the least of his worries. Something else was happening to her love, her perfect match, and she would never know of it—she supposed, not until he was dead.

Could she move on without him? She'd left her dominatrix lifestyle behind because of Sherlock. She'd left women behind because of a stupid, gangly man who wasn't actually stupid at all. She'd left women for silken black curls, high cheekbones, and blue eyes that could freeze water … but only made her feel warm. She'd left women because of his fingers, his smell, his body. She'd become someone else because of him—and she liked the woman she'd become, but what would happen once he was dead? Would she revert?

She supposed so, because why not? She felt little care for a world without him in it, so yes, she would go back to her dangerous lifestyle. Nothing mattered if Sherlock Holmes was no longer walking the earth—and how demeaning, how embarrassing an admission.

Irene continued to watch the news, but nothing—no word from Sherlock. He had killed a man, and he was gone. Gone, gone. And one day, just as she prepared to turn off her TV, build a new website, perhaps cut her hair, a familiar face appeared.

She screamed, not in horror but in glee. Because if Jim Moriarty was back, so was her consulting detective. And this time, she wouldn't play the game lying down.

THE END … ?


End file.
